Slaters 6-wheeled milk tank wagons

[Pathfinder]

Great first post and welcome to the forum! Some really useful information here.

 

As you may have gathered from some of the earlier posts on this thread, quite a few of us are fascinated with the operation of 1960s/70s milk trains, including, of course, in South and West Wales. I mentioned John Vaughan's book The Power of the Hymeks earlier and there are some great photos around Cardiff and Newport including a cracking one at Marshfield showing D7080 shunting milk tanks (page 93). This clearly shows the hard standing you referred to.

 

You've now got me thinking South and West Wales again! Just a shame class 22s weren't regulars there.

 

Thanks for the comment, I haven't seen the John Vaughan Hymek book, i'll have to have a look for it, usually when a 'hydraulic' book comes out i give it a flick through and put it back quickly as there is NO S Wales content or the same old stuff going round again. Seeing the sheer amount of work the 14's, 35, and 52s did there,  these books give a very false idea of history, mainly i believe because the photographers never seemed to cross into Wales to have a look :-( Books on Westerns seem particularly bad especially ones concerning their last days, Paddington-Plymouth seems to be all that ever happened, apart from the fact that they worked in Wales right up to there last days, passenger as well as freight. When do you ever see a photo of a Western on a train of 100t tankers? steel? the Stratford Freightliner ? the Radyr-Acton coal ? the STJ- Margam mixed (very!) ? the Fishguard car carrier ? or even the night Western Lady pulled the LLanwern iron ore after the triple header failed !!!  Sorry, just a bee in a bonnet i have about the subject ;-)

22's in Wales? never saw one working, did see them being dragged to Cashmores for scrap though (expensive train to model, 1x 35 and 4 x 22 ) Did see 22's working around Lydney for the forest workings, ballast and coal etc. these being 82A jobs working down from Gloucester.  

The odd Warship crept in now and then but not a lot. I forgot to say that the 'Marshfield'  before being a Hymek used to be a 14, happy days !

  Me ? i would model the forest ballast trains with 22's or maybe the last 4 kept for the Hemyocks, a model of Cadoxton showing train after train of bananas behind a Hymek would be far too big !

 

john

[d600]

With reference to the Slaters kits, I think once you have done a couple you will find it gets easier as you will get to know their way of thinking, also the 6 wheeled tankers have a lot more detailed parts than most of their wagons and are a more complex kit to build.

When you say pipework, do you mean the vacuum pipes ? You should of had a plan of the underside to show where the pipe runs go, if you have not you can go back to the link on the build I did, and there is a photo of the completed underside including brake linkage as well.

Let us know how you get on,

 

Martyn.

 

P.S. If you need to see the photos a bit larger on that link then you will have to join up which would probably be of interest to you as there is a lot of 7mm stuff on there anyway.

 

 

Hi martyn i followed your link and joined up just waiting to be excepted,it was the vacum pipes i was on about i dont want to do it wrong .

 

cheers

[hmrspaul]

With reference to the Slaters kits, I think once you have done a couple you will find it gets easier as you will get to know their way of thinking, also the 6 wheeled tankers have a lot more detailed parts than most of their wagons and are a more complex kit to build.

When you say pipework, do you mean the vacuum pipes ? You should of had a plan of the underside to show where the pipe runs go, if you have not you can go back to the link on the build I did, and there is a photo of the completed underside including brake linkage as well.

Let us know how you get on,

 

Martyn.

 

P.S. If you need to see the photos a bit larger on that link then you will have to join up which would probably be of interest to you as there is a lot of 7mm stuff on there anyway.

 

Slaters kits are easy so long as you have the experience of measuring a few dozen 12 in./ft examples. Similar to many of the loco kits in 7mm; easy so long as you've done an apprenticeship at BREL. LOL

 

Paul Bartlett

[GW57]

Hi all, I used to live in the village of East Huntspill, just down the road from Bason Bridge where the Milk Factory was and I remember seeing " A Small diesel " shunting 3 or 4 milk tanks across the road into the factory.

At that time I was only interested in steam , so no help on the Diesel side of things.

 

Richard

[3 link]

Well better late than never, I have finally found some time to weather the tankers. One of the pictures is not in direct sunlight so you can judge the colour and hue differences, still might be some touching up to do but not far off from finished.

 

 

 

 

 

They do look very grimy but every colour picture I have seen so far, they have all been in a state of neglect.

 

ATB,

 

Martyn.

[cromptonnut]

The only "clean" milk tankers I've ever seen have been preservation examples, they were all generally very grubby to the point where whatever livery they were in was unidentifiable.

 

The "TMV" rebuilds in 1981 were clean but that was mostly because they never saw much use before scrapping.

[Miss Prism]

Interesting that the indirect sunlight picture shows a considerably greyer body than the direct sunlight pics. It's quite a difference.

[Karhedron]

The only "clean" milk tankers I've ever seen have been preservation examples, they were all generally very grubby to the point where whatever livery they were in was unidentifiable.

I have seen some pictures of the tankers pre-WW2 and it looks like they were kept cleaner back then. It seems only after nationalisation that they were allowed to grime over.

[cromptonnut]

Of course, apologies, should have included the phrase "in latter years" in there.

[Warspite]

For anybody that is remotely interested, I've now posted an update on the Layouts thread of my progress with the Slaters kit (which I bought, um, well over 12 months ago .....).

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/48794-minimum-space-o-gauge-layout/page-9

 

Stephen

[neal cooper]

Really enjoyed this thread! I'm building a tank wagon in the West Park Dairies livery complete with tank sun shiled and I have a few questions for the resident experts out there please. 

 

With the sun shield, does it need trimming to keep all of the raised lip either end or just to keep half of it? Mine in the photo looks to be too long and has these raised ends are still left 'fully rounded' at this stage. (Hope this makes sense).

 

Does anyone have a good picture of one of these with the sun shield? I'm working off the instructions picture and the one on Slaters website, which leave me with questions as well as answers!

 

Should the side boards on this variety be painted black with the underframe of brown as the tank is? They carry the GW insignia and tare details like the body side on a 'brown' vehicle would.

 

Any pointers on the above would be good. I'm about to finish off the tank and get all the surrounding bits trial fitted before painting the tank. Anyone found an easy way of doing this with the sun shield variety?

 

Regards, Neal.

 

[CME and Bottlewasher]

Hi all,

 

I've skim read this thread, very interesting.

 

Does anyone know if the COOP was still using the railways for milk traffic in the 1960/70s? I see some 6 wheel tanks, were branded - earlier - as CWS.

 

IIRC the COOP was mainly white and turquoise road tankers in Wilts/Glos in 1970s?

 

Thanks in anticipation.

 

CME

 

[pwr]

I think the coop in Bath was still receiving milk this way at this time

[Karhedron]

I am not sure when Co-op stopped sending milk by train. If they were still doing so in the 60s, the tankers are unlikely to have been in their pre-war liveries. Most tankers were silver with a generous top-coat of grime by this time.

 

I don't think the Co-op in Bath would have been a recipient of milk. Almost all milk flows by this point were into London. Milk for dairies in other towns were generally brought in locally by lorry. Milk trains for destinations other than London in this period tended to be taking surplus production to plants for processing into cheese, cream, dried milk etc rather than for bottling.

 

There is a photo of the Bath Co-Op dairy here. Whilst close to the station, it doesn't look like it was rail-served.

 

Edited April 4, 2019 by Karhedron

[CME and Bottlewasher]

Thanks guys.

 

After some scratching about, it looks like the CO OP went to road transport in the 1960s, I certainly remember Latton Creamery being so in the 1970s.

 

I understand that the last 'livery' was St Ivel for 6 wheel tanks. Maybe a moot point as most of tanks ended up looking filthy.

 

I'm considering the Slaters kits, not sure how to go about St Ivel livery, as Slaters stylee, the transfers are separate and only available for the more ancient versions (the former aspect is understandable the latter less so).

 

Thanks again.

 

ATVB

 

CME

Edited April 5, 2019 by CME and Bottlewasher

[Fat Controller]

According to the second volume of David Larkin's trilogy on BR NPPCS, the Co-Op and London Co-Op both had their own fleets of six-wheel tanks, which were sold to United Dairies in the late 1950s. The CWS ones were single-barrel tanks, and worked from loading points at Melksham, Wallingford, and Llangadock to depots at East Croydon and Stewart's Lane. The London Co-Op were twin-tank ones , and worked from Puxton and Worle to West Ealing.

[CME and Bottlewasher]

Hi FC,

 

Thanks, much obliged.

 

From what I can tell UD and MMB ended up taking over various 6 wheelers, then the last branded user was St Ivel.

 

Kind regards,

 

CME

[Hal Nail]

On 05/04/2019 at 16:28, CME and Bottlewasher said:

I understand that the last 'livery' was St Ivel for 6 wheel tanks. Maybe a moot point as most of tanks ended up looking filthy.

 

Some photos in Bradford Barton’s Diesels on Cornwall’s Main Line of various very clean St Ivel tanks. Undated but behind BR blue locos: or I assume blue - they are black and white technically!

Edited April 7, 2019 by Hal Nail
Spelling

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

 

Some photos in Bradford Barton’s Diesels on Cornwall’s Main Line of various very clean St Ivel tanks. Undated but behind BR blue locos: or I assume blue - they are black and white technically!

I think that livery was introduced after 1973; my sister took some photos of them at Carmarthen for an 'A' Level project in 1976/7. IIRC, at least some had the (BR-owned) chassis painted in Rail Blue.

[2mmKiwi]

Hi There, 

 

Lots of interesting info on here for any scale. 

I'm converting a bunch of Dapol milk tankers to 2mm fine scale.

Can anyone here direct me to a list of wagon numbers for the Diagram 051 mid mounted platform series?

 

Steve

[hmrspaul]

You should find what you want in Jack Slinn's article in the HMRS Journal vol 12 part 3 1985 pages 87 - 92.

 

This may also help https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwrbrmilktanks

 

Paul

[Hal Nail]

Revisiting this thread. Accepting that the good examples of pre BR designs could still be found in use much later, nevertheless the Slater's GWR version is a pretty early diagram with the old style Dean(?) brake levers at the end. Would the brakes usually have been upgraded or could they still be found in use by the late 50s? By that I mean in reasonable numbers, not a few random exceptions!

 

I've not come across a clear photo of one in use (though there are some on Paul's site above) but more often than not it's hard to see either way. 

Edited February 6, 2020 by Hal Nail

[CME and Bottlewasher]

I understand your issues, I've come across such too and a couple of what look to be exGWR diagrams with later (unknown to me) braking gear. Sadly no dates, diagram, or ownership details come with such photos.

 

I'll stick my neck out, as a non expert, and say that IIRC, I have seen photos of 1950s era vehicles with earlier brake gear arrangements. So you might be lucky!

 

Atvb

 

CME

[cctransuk]

My strongest memory of milk tank wagons was trainspotting at Likeard in the 1960s - the smell of stale spilled milk from the milk bay siding made my stomach turn !!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[CME and Bottlewasher]

Yep old milk is awful. I used to contract for the CO-OP and I've encountered it too......yuk!